Hello and thank you very much for your suggestions.
First I should clarify a couple of things:
1. This design should be printable
without any support material.
2. By printing the cover standing up on the bottom of the cover I can angle the top of the cover such that the overhang can be printable.
I have chosen to print it standing up due to two concerns:
1. The latch.The latch has to be printed such that the layer lines flow parallel to the bending force (please look at figure1 for this).
The latch could be printed this way with the cover laying on its front face but than the latch would have less material supporting it without making it bulkier.
2. The front surface.It would look very nice with a textured build plate. But with a flat (glass top) which are still very popular this would give it an "ironed" look which I do not like. So the entire esthetic would depend on your build plate, and the goal of a good design is to avoid that.
(although I have to admit thinking about it, a textured look would be very nice
)
3. Round edges.Round edges with a big radius like here can not be printed lying flat because at the bottom this results in unprintable overhangs.
You could say: "Don't use round angles then." -No, it looks nice. The Rigol design esthetic is very pointy with lots of sharp edges and pointy corners, a slight round over would defuse this a bit imo. (but I'm en engineer and not a designer, so what do I know...).
4. Embossing The embossing can stick out (like it currently does) or cut in to the front face.
Both have the same problem when printing it attached to a side wall eg. the first line is unsupported (please look at figure2).
But with the logo sticking out only 0.4mm this is less than one layer line width so it will actually be supported.
The problem comes when the wall is printed at an angle (like here) the solution is to add a taper at the bottom so the overhang is 90 degrees.
Note: I will have to ad a steeper bootom taper than it is the case currently to make the model printable.
So those are my thoughts.
I will try the design on an ultimaker 5.
If it works, great. If not, I will try a simpler front geometry and print it flat like you suggested.
Again thank you very much for your suggestions and have a great day.
Bye.